Princesses and Elves
by FreakingOutAlways
Summary: They were never expecting this. . . Especially not from him.
1. Chapter 1

Despite what they thought, neither SHIELD, nor the team knew everything about Tony Stark. This was because he frequently hacked his own file (and everybody else's because he was paranoid goddamnit and he had a good reason(s) to be) and changed any information that was there that he didn't want to be public knowledge. Therefor only a very select number of people knew about the truth about what happened in Afghanistan and the aftermath and even then the true extent of it was blurred. Three worked at SHIELD, Agent Phil Coulson, (turns out, he wasn't actually dead) Director Nick Fury, and Natasha Romanov, aka, Black Widow. Even so, much of his life story had been successfully veiled from both the media and the shadows. Howard Stark could never have allowed certain mistakes of his son's leaked to his press, never mind the suspiciously frequent hospital visits.

Especially not _her_.

The Avengers however, became privy to a certain little titbit of information that blew their own formulated opinions about him way out of the water, on a stormy, wet day in the middle of February where they were faced with a fleet of what appeared to be a fleet of mutant bogeymen who had also managed to require the scream of a banshee, (Tony had great fun speculating how that came about, much to Steve's distaste and Clint's amusement)

This sort of thing had come about a lot lately, because the battle of Manhattan had apparently signalled to the rest of the Cosmos that 'Hey, we're here! Come and have a go' All of the coming and going and missing meetings had driven Pepper into a near panic induced breakdown and Tony in a state of exhaustion, his schedule maxed out to a near impossible state. For ease of access, Director Fury had promptly shoved all of the Avengers into one of Starks's abandoned estates, to _their_ thorough horror, and Tony's considerable outrage, although they all found it hard to believe when they arrived to find a personally designed floor for each member's taste and what should have been a life time supply of Pop Tarts in the kitchen cupboard (Thor went through them in a week), not to mention the high tech gym, complete with a considerable amount of Boxing bags and an archery range, had all been hastily in stored on a single whim. That was the day they learned about the mask. This was the day, they learnt what it concealed.

When they had eventually finished the battle, all of them were extremely wiped out, and resisting the urge to throw up, a nasty side-effect of the banshee-like wails. It had been long and exhausting, the Cap and Natasha running about like headless chickens trying desperately to protect civilians, Hawkeye shooting arrows through any that passed through his line of vision; the Hulk leaping from place to place, ripping them apart and roaring constantly and Thor and Tony up in the air, attacking from above and searching for a weak spot. Sadly, despite all of the reinforced effort they put in to protect the panicked populace, a good few houses had been demolished by the catastrophic roamers, one of which had grown a good several feet high, and had crushed a bunch of cute cafes on one of the main streets before Tony eventually impaled him with a huge spear fashioned out of a metal telegraph pole, his lasers cutting the point into a deadly spike. It had only ended when Tony had noticed, upon closer inspection, a small metal bolt, Frankenstein style, tiny but a sure weakness. Thor had immediately let loose a whole blockade of crackling lightening, that had run through the bolt and had charged the gruesome monsters with enough deadly sparks that within five seconds, they had been either blown up into charred smithereens, and burned and crumbled into black ash.

They were headed off to Shwarma- which had become something of a custom for them and the Café they frequented had had a significant up rise of customers after a nosy reporter (who became a little bit too obsessed and had taken to stalking them, even Tony was freaked) had outed their secret resting place and dubbed it, 'THE SUPERHERO CAFÉ- after being cleared by medical-Natasha's ears had bled a little after getting too close, and Hawkeye dubbed a significant bash to the head but was otherwise unharmed. Tony had remained suspiciously quiet, but the team didn't say anything. They knew how much Tony's hated hospitals. -that they heard it.

At first they though it was another Banshee. Indeed Natasha clapped her hands protectively over her ears, Bruce, or the Hulk as he was right now, growled threateningly, Clint's bow was suddenly in his hand and Thor began yelling in ancient Norse. Tony, curiously enough didn't do anything. He didn't even put his suit back on, which had been taken off when the battle was over, badly dented and showing a large amount of new bruising just beginning to blossom over his sharp features, after being snatched out of the air and being smashed against the pavement a fair amount of times, before he had managed to blast it's arm off. Instead, he perked up, and went curiously pale.

'Stark? You all right?-' That was all Steve had time to get out before Tony sprinted off down the street they were walking down, back towards the jet that brought them there, with the rest of the Team bringing up the rear and looking on with horror as the billionaire began to heave chunks of fallen brick and plaster from one of the demolished houses with his bare hands, getting them horribly cut up in the process. Here, the keening was louder. Natasha, funnily enough, was the first one to figure out it's true source.

'Is that a baby?' she asked incredulously, listening hard to the pathetically desperate wail issuing from the debris. Tony didn't even pause to answer.

'No it's a dead alien Zombie' he snapped back, although his bite was gone and his tone was tense. 'Now this me a hand with this would you? I'm not as good at this without my suit and I don't want to push it too far today'

Steve, Thor, Natasha and Clint were already beside him, the Hulk joining them a moment later when Tony yelled for it to 'get its big green butt over here to help!'

Steve was the one to find the infant, lying in a small cot underneath a huge wooden beam that had thankfully stopped its descent inches from the kid's face. It was a baby girl, by the look of it, wrapped in fluffy pink blankets big brown eyes, dark curly hair and a face that was magenta red from screaming. A hand could be seen, pale and bloodied, sticking out from under a slab of concrete. Steve felt a pang of sadness. There was no way she could have survived. Her baby was an orphan.

'Guys! Over here'

Natasha was the first over, her face blank, but her eyes were brighter than they should have been. She stared down at the child with an overwhelming sense of empathy. Steve remembered what little he had read of her childhood in her file. Her parents had died in a fire. The roof fell in.

'You alright' he asked, his voice low, as the others picked their way over, Bruce, now human without a shirt, (Tony had adapted the pants, the Fantastic Four owned him a favour anyway). Natasha glanced up at him before glancing back down again. 'Fine Captain. Never better'

Bruce picked up the baby carefully, who quietened at the touch, but still gave out heart rending sobs and hiccups at regular intervals.

'All fine' he proclaimed, to numerous sighs of relief, after a couple of minutes tender poking and prodding.

'She'll be fine I should think. Just shocked and tired. Most likely hungry too. Tony could you. . . '

Bruce trailed off questioningly. Tony was already on one of his sleek, transparent phones and rattling off a list of baby products to whoever was at the other hand, probably Happy. When he had tucked it into his pocket, an awkward silence fell over the assembly. What could be done now that the mother was gone, dead and crushed under so much rubble? None had the wish to dump the kid onto social services. For many of the Avengers, Natasha and Clint in particular, did not see that as an acceptable option.

'Sir'

They turned to see an anxious junior SHIELD agent with huge glasses and a buzz cut standing behind them, looking with unconcealed curiosity at the small bundle of pink, balanced precariously in Bruce's arms trying to grab the good Doctor's nose and howling.

'Do you need me to call social services?'

'NO!' The reply was unanimous; Tony's voice ruling over the rest, fixing the guy with a special Stark stare that had the poor guy quailing under the receiving end. 'We'll take it from here Shortround'

Tony strode forward and with surprising gentleness and agility, plucked the baby from Bruce's arms and resting her against his hip. Almost immediately, her whimpers ceased, and she latched her small chubby arms around his neck.

'How did you do that?'

Tony glanced up.

'You weren't holding her right, jolly green'

Then he strode off towards the jet, although his teammates hung back.

'Is it me, or is something not right here?' Clint asked suspiciously, lowering his voice so as not to alert Tony that they were talking about him.

'I agree' nodded Natasha fervently, her red curls bobbing and shaking as she did so. 'Did you see the colour he went when he heard her?'

'He seemed almost . . . maternal' Steve said incredulously, wrinkling his nose slightly. 'Since when did he know the correct way to hold a baby?'

Bruce looked, as ever, the pinnacle of peace, except for his slightly pink nose and lopsided glasses that he was repeatedly tweaking, a sure sign of anxiety in the mild mannered man.

'Tony has been to a lot of events all through his life' he began quietly. 'Maybe it's something he learnt as a kid, a picture for the tabloids. Either way, we should butt out. This is none of our business. Remember what happened last time?'

They did. It wasn't something they wanted to repeat. One by one they followed Stark, only to be greeted by Tony, with is feet spread and propped p across several seats, fingers on lips and nodding at the baby girl fast asleep in the crook of his arm.

'Alia's sleeping' was all he whispered before snatching a bottle of water out of his science bro's grip and chugging most of it down before handing it back with a trademark grin. Natasha however, was trying desperately not to cry, although the watery shine over her eyes and the biting of one lip still had Clint becoming concerned when he noticed. He asked her, in Hindi, what was bugging her. He got a choked whisper of, 'He named her Princess in Russian'

The newly named Alia slept for the entire trip. But as as soon as they returned to Malibu, Tony was off, thrusting a startled and wakened Alia into an equally startled Thor's grip, who promptly dropped his giant hammer with an untimely BANG, causing the ground to sag and tremble, and causing Alia to promptly take up where she left off, and start yowling.

Thus was the beginning of a new Mission Impossible, a team of highly unbalanced, broken individuals had to raise a small, fragile baby without causing it ant harm whatsoever. Unfortunately, they had no idea where to start. They had no choice but to ask JARVIS, who politely informed them, that there were jars of baby food in the fridge, and began giving directions. Unwisely, it was Steve who held the fort in the kitchen. Ten minutes later, and Natasha had fire foam in her hair, Thor was still holding the fire extinguisher, Clint was in the process of destroying the blender with a frying pan, Steve was looking immensely guilty, and Alia was happily sucking on her now Tomato and Ham flavoured sludge smothered babygro. Bruce was at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, and Tony was still no-where to be seen.

It only got worse from there. They lost her as soon as her interest in the babygro faded, and began to explore. Never had a creature on all fours moved so fast, she was off like a shot. She was everywhere. Somehow she managed to grab hold of someone's slipper and started banging it against the DVD player, when her current sitter, (Clint) was otherwise preoccupied in the toilet. When the tray shot out, Alia decided that what the slipper really wanted was to go through the hole in the black plastic, and that all it took was a little brute-force persuasion. It was creaking ominously when Clint came back into the room, saw what the poor slipper was enduring and vaulted immediately over the sofa giving out a startled yelp as he did so, and snatched the slipper away.

'No Alia, you don't do that'

One brief look of surprise as her new found friend was tugged cruelly away, then she scrunched up her eyes and began to wail. Clint winced, and backtracked rapidly.

'You can't put it in there because it wasn't designed for that! They go on your feet like this' He proceeded to demonstrate.

'Or you could use it as a football and head it. Or use it like a hat'

He put the slipper on his head and proceeded to strut up and down the living room, causing Alia to giggle hysterically, and causing Clint to breathe a sigh of relief. Major tantrum averted. Even so, this was kind of fun. . .

'_Clint Barton, Agent of SHIELD is wearing the latest in designer slippers. The slipper is made from the finest er. . . synthetic material and the lining is pure um. . . synthetic material!'_

'Something you want to tell us?' Clint spun around so fast, the slipper flew off his head, smacking Steve in the face as Natasha smirked and clapped sarcastically. Clint bowed low to his adoring fans.

But by nightfall, they were bone tired, Steve in particular rather traumatised. It had been voted, when Alia had become a bit too stinky, he was the one to do the nappy change. When he came back, carrying the bundle of death in the grip of a pair of pliers and deposited her back into the play pen, (God bless Happy Hogan) he looked almost dazed.

'That thing's poo' he stated slowly, pointing at Alia, who was innocently throttling a pink fluffy bunny, 'is toxic'

It was indeed. Clint had been halfway to the phone to dispatch the Biohazard Squad before Natasha tackled him to the floor and pulled his back to the sofa by his ear. Who knew that little people were so time consuming, mused Bruce, observing the little girl, who had one floppy ear in her mouth and was sucking on it greedily. She saw him watching and waved her arms about excitedly, grinning, although this caused the stuffed toy to fall out.

When Alia yawned, they jumped at the chance and immediately scooped her up and deposited her into the cot, (When Steve next saw the limo driver he would kneel down and kiss his shoes) threw a few blankets over her, and practically legged it down the corridors and to their own respective rooms, and henceforth, their beds. For the first time in a long time, they all found themselves wanting to sleep. Alia, sadly, did not share that sentiment.

Steve was the first to give. After many hours of tossing and turning, on his front, back both sides and upside down, several pillows constantly wrapped about his head, he gave up. He swung himself out of bed and padded softly down the corridor, following the sound of a child's bawling.

He entered the room, and saw Alia, face red and blotchy, gripping the bars on her cot to keep her upright. Wearily, Steve picked her up and tried jiggling her, hoping she'd stop crying and settle down. No such luck. If it were possible, her voice increased in both volume and pitch, which was when Clint, Natasha and Thor burst in, Clint still wrapped in several blankets and looking faintly like a mummy, swearing in a mix of violent sounding languages, his eye twitching worriedly, Thor hefting Mjolnir above his head and letting loose a stream of irritable ancient Norse. Natasha was the one who caught his gaze. She was not looking upon with Alia with an unreachable, cool façade, nor the gaze of affection that Steve had caught her with once or twice when she thought no-one was looking. This was a look of hate, the look of a murderer. She wasn't all there, Steve realized, quickly putting Alia back into the cot. And wherever she was, Alia was the annoying fly, just asking to be squashed.

Steve was right. Natasha wasn't all there. When Alia first began crying, she had been fine. Then, as time went on, she became twitchy, recalling the younger one's cries the first few nights in the Red Room. Some of them hadn't stopped. So she had made them, soothing their nerves with fake promises as she slit their throats. Natasha hadn't had a flashback for such a long time, that when she came around to find herself with a smarting cheek, Clint holding her down, and Tony Stark on top of her, with her hand holding the handle of one _her_ knifes in his shoulder, she was confused. As realization dawned, she slowly became horrified.

'You can let me up now' she murmered, and got to her feet quickly, not making eye contact, searching desperately for Alia. What had she done?

'It's alright' Clint whispered soothingly. 'You're back, you didn't do anything, you're _fine.'_

_'_Tony'

Tony looked up from where Bruce was already looking at his shoulder. He looked a little worse for wear, aside from the rapidly spreading blood stain on an old MIT shirt. The bruises were more developed, and there were deep sunken bruises underneath his eyes, the rims of which were suspiciously red, that she had never noticed until now.

'It's cool Itsy Bitsy' he said quietly, although somehow, this soothed her more than Clint's whispered platitudes. 'I don't exactly have a good record with flashbacks. I shouldn't have touched you, it wasn't your fault.'

He cleared his throat, and became harder, looking about the room impatiently. 'As I was saying before I was so rudely pounced in' he gave Natasha a mock glare, 'What the fuck is going on? I'm in my lab, perfectly happy-'

'Drinking yourself into a stupor' Bruce murmured, giving Tony's shoulder an unnecessarily sharp poke as he wound the white bandage tight, causing Tony to yip like a wounded puppy, and slap the intruding Bruce's hand away.

'It was iced tea! Anyway, then Bruce smashes his way into my lab using an empty fire extinguisher' Thor shifted guiltily, 'with is eyes all manic and gleamy, telling me to get my arse upstairs because Alia wouldn't shut up and he was about to do something drastic! Well?'

He looked at them each in turn expectantly. After a moment of silence, Steve spoke up timidly.

'She won't stop crying'

Tony looked gobsmacked. He actually looked at them twice to see if they were joking. Natasha looked deadly serious, Clint was pretty much the same, Bruce was still looking a little green, Thor was ready to smash and Steve looked ready to burst into tears.

'She's a baby Steve. How else are they going to tell you something's wrong? If this is how you handle Alia I would hate to see you around a new born you have to be up every three hours to feed them' He winced at that last part. He had given something away, he knew by the spark in Barton and Romanov's eye. Even Thor looked suddenly knowing. He sighed in exasperation, and, much to the amazement of the others marched over to the cot and picked the baby out of it, crooning softly and hugging her to his chest, and fingering her now crusty babygo with disgust.

'Uh, guys? Did you feed her the food or did you throw it at her?'

The team glanced at each other. Now that they thought about it, they hadn't actually gotton around to actually feeding Alia. They were too busy trying to stop the food from painting the walls. Tony shook his head and opened Alia's mouth gently. She slobbered all over him. He groaned with realization.

'She's teething' he announced, walking over to the kitchen and plucking one of the new bottles out of the cupboard and a carton of Goat's milk and pouring it inside. Then he popped the microwave door opened and shoved the bottle inside and pressed a few buttons. Then he rummaged about in a drawer and took out a small metal tube, squeezing a small amount onto a finger and spreading it across Alias's slightly inflamed gums, and plopping her back into her high chair. She was no longer yelling.

Tony sat down on a chair, tense, waiting for the onslaught of questions. Romanov sat down next to him.

'What was her name?' she asked abruptly, her gaze tearing through him. Tearing him apart. JARVIS's voice sounded.

'Approximately six years ago, a baby girl no older than four weeks was deposited on his doorstep in the middle of December-'

'Mute' Tony said sharply. Natasha glared at him.

'Unmute'

'Override that'

'_Tony'_

_'WHAT!_'

He was standing, breathing heavily. Why did they have to talk about this? Couldn't they see how much this hurt him, how much he wanted these treasured memories gone?

'What do you want me to say Natasha? That I got wasted, slept with a girl, and in the morning couldn't even remember my own name? That nine months later, my daughter was shoved on the doorstep, that my father nearly killed when he found out? How I had to learn all of this stuff by myself and she _still_ died?'

The team looked shocked, even heart broken. He turned away, not wanting to see the pity in their eyes. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, even as the microwave dinged. He hurriedly got the bottle, made sure the milk wasn't too hot, and gave it to Alia, who immediately began to suck. Out of his pocket he took out his wallet and wordlessly handed it around. A picture of a little girl, with curly hair and Tony's eyes gazed at them, mouth turned up in an everlasting smile.

'What was her name?' Natasha asked again.

Tony gazed at the photo, knowing that he would never hear her laugh again and when he answered, his voice was embarrassingly hoarse.

'Her name was Elfie.


	2. Chapter 2

A resonating silence rang about the room. All its occupants had felt pain, emotional and physical. They had all lost people, people they had cared about, and it had left its mark on all of them. The pain was so intense it felt like losing a limb. But none of them could ever imagine the pain of losing a child. Tony was now footling about with another little jar of baby food, (banana , this time) spooning it into a small plastic bowl and heating it up one minute at a time. He began to speak again, not making eye contact.

'I met Charlotte shortly after leaving MIT, she was working as a waitress in a fancy bar in uptown New York. It was one night, we were drunk, no biggie. A few weeks later, she disappeared, left her job, left her apartment, left everything. Didn't think too much of it at the time'

Tony, apparently deciding that the food was now warm enough, pulled up a stool in front of Alia's high chair, and spooned the yellow sludge into her mouth, scraping the bits that escaped it, off her chin. The motion was automatic, his eyes were glazed over, and the words just kept on coming. After his baby being such a big secret for so many years, carrying that wallet around with him everywhere he went, it was strangely relieving to tell probably the only people, he could trust it with. Well, apart from Pepper, but he thought she knew anyway. She wasn't stupid. She would've figured it out.

'Then nine months later, in the middle of December, Jarvis comes, in with this bundle of blankets in his arms and a tiny blue face screaming bloody murder-'

'Sorry what?' Steve looks confused, he isn't the only one. Natasha and Clint are wearing identical frowns, Thor looks puzzled and even Bruce is out of the loop.

'I though JARVIS was an . . . A thing that speaks out of the walls' Steve flushes slightly, having gotton the technical term incorrect, but Tony, for once, doesn't seem to mind.

Tony looks up, and a sad smile flits across his features, so fast you could almost miss it before being replaced by a mask of complaisance. 'Not JARVIS the AI' he says softly, spooning yet another gloop off Alia's chin, as she gazed up at him curiously, and made a grab for his hair.

'Jarvis the person. He practically raised since I was born, because God knows Howard and Maria never had the time'

He chances a glance at Steve at this. The good Captain looks crushed, the knowledge that Howard was a less than pleasant father, (understatement of the millennium) was obviously not easy to hear. That wasn't Tony's problem. He had to know sometime, and Steve was just going to have to suck it up and take it.

'He was the one who slapped me upside the head when I completely objected to the idea I could be a father. Charlotte had left a note, explaining who she was. She also mentioned that she had spent the last of her money getting a plane ticket to Mexico to start a new life. She hadn't even bothered to name her kid.'

'And you took her in?' asked Romanov softly, looking at him in a whole new light. She had to ask, she had to make sure that this wasn't a lie, an illusion, a petty trick to fool her into believing in him. It was just so unexpected, something she could have never have anticipated, but then _none_ of them could have, especially not from him.

Tony almost sounded indignant as he whirled around to face her.

'Of course I took her in Romanov! She was my daughter!' he winced, acknowledging the past tense, which felt like a shard of glass lodged in his throat. 'I wasn't about to go and chuck her back out into the snow! Believe it or not, I actually did want to not make as big a screw up of her life as my parents did my own'

Without thinking, his hand flew to his wrist, feeling the scar beneath his long sleeved shirt. He caught the red heads eyes and saw them widen in horror as she caught what the gesture meant.

'Jarvis taught me the basics. What to feed her, when to feed her, getting up pin the middle of the night wasn't that big of a problem, I was normally awake anyway, and she was actually a pretty quiet baby. Dad didn't even notice for six months, not even kidding. It was only when Elfie caught a really bad cold that he did and wouldn't stop crying that he did. . .'

Tony winced. 'Well. . . It wasn't good. He nearly strangled me and was ready to chuck Elfie into the orphanage. I put my foot down, said no. Jarvis backed me up. He didn't like that'

He swallowed, scraping the last of the banana pudding onto the plastic utensil and making quiet aeroplane noises as Alia obediently opened her mouth and clamped it shut around the pink spoon and making happy gurgling noises as she polished the lot. He didn't dare look at his team-mates expressions. He hadn't wanted them to know of his unsavoury childhood, any less than he had wanted them to know about Elfie. But the two stories were linked. One could not be told without the other.

'Let's not go into the details. Dad ended up with a broken nose and Jarvis with a nasty contusion and me with a horrible concussion to say the least. We came back from the ER and the O word was never even mentioned again. I knew I could never count on Dad for help so Jarvis was the only support I had. It's actually kind of weird. Jarvis was more of a father to me than my biological parents, yet when he died in that Car crash with them, not in one single article so much as mentioned his name. I would've fallen apart if it weren't for Elfie. I be together to look after her. When she died, there was nothing holding me back. I spiralled downwards for an entire year, when missing entirely from the public eye. Didn't eat, didn't sleep, I was pretty much Anorexic and the only rest I got was when I passed out. Then I bounced back, moved on, God damn hardest thing I have ever had to do, took on the company and two years later Afghanistan happened.'

Tony finished as he hefted a sleep looking Alia out of her High Chair and onto his shoulder and moving to the huge, comfy chair in the corner of the room that only he was allowed to sit in, gently patting and rubbing her back as she burped softly, her soft head of curls nestled into his neck smelling of Baby milk and Banana. It was so similar to his long dead daughter, Tony nearly burst into tears right then and there.

The team looked on at them fondly. Bruce took off his glasses and polished them on another purple shirt and slid them back on, as if subtly trying to make sure that what he was seeing was indeed what he was seeing and not just some illusion left over by the other guy.

'Tony' Bruce's voice was soft, but sounded like a shout in the near silent room. 'How did-'

He pauses, tongue tied, trying to think of a nicer way to pose the question that he was just itching to know. Tony looked at up from his, his Iron mask back on, nothing showing in either his eyes or his face.

'How did Elfie die?' Bruce asked gently. Tony stared at him blankly for a moment before replying slowly, hesitantly, as if not sure of the answer himself.

'Officially, she died of natural causes when she was one year old. But after Afghanistan I took a look at the pictures I had taken of the room where she died and noticed something I hadn't before. A tiny, embroidered pillow that I had never seen before in my life was lying next to her'

Steve looked on aghast.

'Someone smothered her? A baby?'

'Not someone.' Natasha snarled. Her hair looked brighter than ever, almost real flames in the dim light. _'Obadiah'_

Tony nodded slightly. 'The only person who hated me enough to do it. It's too bad I killed him when I did. If I had known, it would have taken a lot longer' His eyes had taken on an uncharacteristically dark tone and his voice was a low and threatening growl that caused the baby no his shoulder to stir and murmur before he quickly shushed her back to slumber land.

'Why Elfie?' asked Clint quietly, swiftly and wisely changing the subject. Tony smiled, an actual, genuine smile that was surprisingly contagious.

'Ironically enough Legolas, at that time I was a big fan of Lord of the Rings, and a bit of a thing for the Elves. But I could never remember her name so I nicknamed her Elfie and it just stuck'

He shrugged the unoccupied shoulder and smiled a bit more. His team smiled with him.

Alia practically became their mascot. Small, adorable and universally loved. She even made Director Fury coo over her, and that should have been virtually impossible. Tony was happier than anyone had ever seen him, although if you didn't know him well, it would be hard to tell. It was the little things, the way the bottles of Alcohol became covered in dust, the way he actually spent time sleeping instead of blasting music in his lab.

The illusion was horribly, and inevitably smashed one sunny day three months later. It was then that what Tony had been doing that first day was revealed. He had been searching for Alia's next of kin. He had found an uncle and had emailed him, but hadn't received a reply. That was because, it turned out, young Brandon had been parading up and down the country looking for his runaway little sister. When he had seen the email on his laptop when he finally returned, he set right out to the Avengers tower, thanked the Team, completely whole heartedly for all they had done and telling her they would be welcome to visit whenever they wanted to, before whisking his niece away, leaving nothing but the smell of banana puree behind.

Tony became a Zombie. It was like he what he had described in the aftermath of his daughter's death. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep, and no-one, not even Bruce could get him out of that lab.

It was an entire week before they managed to get him out. They bunged him onto the sofa and shoved the Fellowship of the Ring into the very same DVD player that had almost met it's end by a slipper, and watched, and comforted, pretending not to notice, in the dim light cast by the Plasma TV, the way Tony's shoulders shook and tears fell down his face as he sobbed.

They see her again. The Avengers plus Nick Fury were usured into a clean, cosy, spacious house where they saw a dark skinned, dark haired little girl playing on a circular mat with a fluffy pink bunny. The most widely loved baby in the universe.

'Hello Princess'


End file.
